


True Happiness: A 15 x 18 Coda

by joplin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, M/M, Post-Episode: s15e18 Despair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27478120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joplin/pseuds/joplin
Summary: Immediately following the events of "Despair," Dean has to explain Cas's sacrifice to Sam and Jack.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 97





	True Happiness: A 15 x 18 Coda

When Dean tells Sam and Jack that Cas sacrificed himself to the empty, Sam breathes out deeply, too tired and hurt to form follow up questions. Jack, on the other hand, takes only a beat of confusion before the switch flips in his brain.

“What did you do?” he asks Dean with that bright, earnest curiosity only he could pull off.

(The slight tilt of his quizzical expression is familiar- a learned behavior from his most devoted father. It hurts Dean to look at.)

Dean stares back, hard and defensive. “I didn’t do anything, what do you mean ‘what did I do’ there was nothing I could do-”

“I’m sorry,” Jack cuts Dean off before he can inflict serious damage on a chair back he’s holding a little too tightly. Jack’s voice is still bright now- still inhumanly honest- but apologetic. (His eyes are wide: sincere and unblinking. This, too, is a painful similarity Dean has somehow overlooked until this moment.) “I mean, what caused it?” Jack continues. “He told me- and, I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you, Castiel made me promise not to, even though I wanted to, I did- but… he told me The Empty would only come if he was happy. So, what did you do? To make him happy?”

Dean suddenly feels as though the air has been sucked from his lungs. He tries to remember how to breathe. How to speak. He manages, finally- barely- to eke out the word “Nothing.” He’s practically doubled over the chair now, eyes trained on the edge of the table. Sam can tell he’s seeing something else, though. Something both too close and too far away. And then all at once, everything falls into place in Sam’s mind. He can’t know, of course, but he can guess. Probably pretty accurately. “Dean,” he says.

But Dean just jerks his head to the side. One quick, small movement to say, Give me a minute. I can’t.

Sam understands. Jack understands. They wait. And they don’t take their eyes off him.

In his mind, Dean is replaying every word Cas said in the dungeon, every single word after he put up the blood sigil to protect Dean- again- because he can’t stop, because he wishes he had done something, done anything, to make this right. He keeps his eyes shut tight, pretending the darkness means he’s _there_ too, that the Cas he sees and hears in his head is someone he can reach out and touch– 

He feels the wooden chair under his fingertips. A reminder of reality.

Sam’s eyes are still on Dean as he jerks his hands away from the wood so fast you’d think it burned him.

Jack frowns slightly as Dean raises his palms and presses them, hard, into his still-closed eyes.

Dean has gotten to the magic words in his memory. He plays them over and over again, like a wish. Like a prayer.

Suddenly another memory- other words- cut in. Purgatory, his eyesight bleary from crying, his mind racing in panic. Cas’s voice, like a miracle. “You don’t have to say it.” _But I want to,_ Dean thinks desperately. _I wanted to._ He always left so much unsaid.

When Dean finally speaks, it’s quiet. Not meant for anyone in this room.

“It wasn’t me,” he says. “It was Cas. Cas made us happy.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> tumblr: itsinjustbeing


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